Pass It On Read online

  “Wow,” Mickey said. And then they locked eyes and started to fool around very intensely because that was the only relatively harmless thing they could think of to do—and since they’d been hanging out at home alone, they’d been doing it constantly.

  They were in the Pardo living room, which was massive and blanketed in art, and which resembled the hall of a medieval castle. They were sprawled out on the huge purple couch and took breaks from kissing to sip beer from shiny cans of Sapporo. Mickey was in billowy black shorts and an I KAREN O T-shirt. Over the last couple of days he’d rediscovered shorts and remembered how much he liked them.

  “Have you talked to anybody today?”

  “Only at school.” Philippa rubbed her eyes. She had allergies and the rugs in the Pardo house all came from exotic animals.

  “Did you hear anything about Liesel’s party?” Mickey asked.

  “Just that we missed a good time.”

  To Mickey, it sounded a little like Philippa wished she’d been there. They were quiet. She handed him the beer. He sipped it, and smiled at her.

  He could feel the need to go out and break stuff rumbling in his chest. He knew that this just wasn’t his nature, that no matter how much he loved Philippa, he couldn’t sit at home and study and fool around much longer. Then his cell rang and he fumbled around on the floor to get it. Unlike, say, Jonathan, who had the latest Motorola with all the extras, Mickey was content with an old phone of his dad’s that was about the size of a softball, and that he had to punch a few times after it rang to get a connection. It was David.

  “I heard that Ebershoff kid attacked you with a meat cleaver last night,” Mickey said.

  “Close,” David said. “But we got out of there. Where were you?”

  “Same place I am now. Behaving myself, with my girl.”

  “Gawd,” David said. “Listen, something weird is happening with Jonathan.”

  “Yeah, his dad’s getting married, right?” Mickey was stroking Philippa’s hair. So long and brown. He kissed her cheek. In the background, the Beatles’ Abbey Road played softly.

  “That’s part of it. What else do you know?”

  “Well, he called because he wanted to know what clothes to buy for hiking or hang gliding.” Mickey looked at Philippa, who was picking at her cuticle. “I’m going with him on some sailing trip to the jungle or something.”

  “You are?” David asked. “But I am, too.”

  Philippa went to change the music. She was wearing a long red dress, and it flowed behind her. The room was so big that it took time to get to the wall with the stereo controls, and she seemed to glide, like a ghost. Mickey watched her.

  “Great. I’m sure we all are. What’s the problem?” Mickey frowned. If David was about to confirm the stuff Philippa had been saying the night before, then maybe the trip would be off after all.

  “Well, Jonathan told me only one of us could come. And that it’s me,” David said.

  Mickey could hear David breathing heavily into the phone.

  “Oh. Well, that’s kind of lame of him to invite me, too, then,” Mickey said, and started picking at his cuticle, like Philippa.

  “Yeah, and he invited Arno.”

  “Huh.”

  “But wait—there’s this other thing that my dad said Jonathan’s mom told him about his dad that’s even worse—”

  “Isn’t your dad not supposed to talk about things he’s learned from patients?” Mickey asked. He’d visited many therapists and counselors over the years, so he knew the rules.

  “Yeah,” David said. “I guess he feels like he’s beyond that rule. But forget it, I think.”

  “I already have and he’s not.”

  “Whatever, Mickey, the point is I’m telling you this thing about Jonathan, but now I’m actually kind of wondering why Jonathan is lying to all of us, or playing favorites, or whatever he’s doing.” David paused. “I think he feels guilty about some stuff.” David could hear that he was channeling his dad. He shuddered.

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Um, I don’t know. Nothing.” As annoyed as David was at Jonathan for being sketchy about the whole sailing-trip-thing and whom he had invited, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Mickey about Jonathan’s dad being a thief. That just seemed too huge.

  “Well, let’s not say anything to him if he doesn’t say anything to us,” Mickey said. “We’ll see how long it takes for him to straighten this out.” Mickey chuckled, but he was actually sort of bummed. He’d gotten excited about rafting in the Amazon, which he’d imagined doing on this trip. He wondered if David was wrong and maybe Jonathan did still plan on taking him, rather than David or Arno.

  “Okay,” David spoke quickly. “And I’ll keep the other thing completely to myself. Deal?”

  “Yeah, it’s a deal,” Mickey said with authority.

  Philippa came back, having switched the music to a Dvoák symphony she loved because she’d played the piano when she was younger. The classical music started quietly and then began to thunder through the big room.

  “Okay,” Mickey said. “I’m holed up with Philippa but I’m sure I’ll talk to you later.”

  Mickey got off the phone. He looked over to the other side of the couch, where Philippa was stroking one of the family dogs, an old white greyhound called Blue. With her other hand, she covered her mouth and nose with a cloth napkin.

  “What happened?” Philippa asked.

  “Well,” Mickey said. “It seems like Jonathan was only supposed to invite one friend on the wild sailing trip, but he invited me, David, and Arno, and maybe Patch, too, although I haven’t talked to him in a while.”

  “Sorry, baby. I know you were excited about going,” Philippa said. They lay there, quietly, in front of the ten-foot-high fireplace, surrounded by huge sculptures and paintings. In the distance, they could hear one of the housekeepers preparing hors d’oeuvres for the drinks hour that the Pardos had every day at six-thirty for whomever happened to be around the house, whether they were art dealers, collectors, or just Ricardo’s staff of guys, who were always up for some eating.

  “I think he’ll still take me. I mean, I’d definitely be the most fun, and really, he’d probably fall of the edge of a cliff or something if I wasn’t there to help him with all the outdoorsy stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Philippa said. “But don’t do anything too wild to prove that to him, okay?” Philippa was really good at reading Mickey’s mind.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Mickey smiled mischievously at his beautiful, calm girlfriend and picked up a big log. He dropped it on the massive andirons his dad had made out of a park bench. “Got a match?”

  Philippa flipped him some matches. He struck the match and threw it into the fireplace, and immediately the huge log was engulfed in flame. The Pardos soaked their logs in kerosene because they were too impatient to bother with kindling.

  Philippa reached over and kissed Mickey, and he decided he could wait to prove to Jonathan that he was the most fun friend and thus definitely the guy to take on the trip. After all, he’d still be fun even after making out with Philippa some more, right? And before long they were rolling around together in front of the sputtering, flaming log.

  the joy of being somewhere i never am

  Ruth and I agreed to meet for tea at a little spot in Williamsburg, which is a neighborhood where I basically never go. For one thing, it’s in Brooklyn, and for another, it’s like visiting a college campus because there are so many hipsters streaming around. And honestly, twenty-five-year-old guys dressed up in whatever the guys from the Darkness wore the last time they played Bowery Ballroom can be a little trying. I mean, sometimes these hipsters just look old. And old hipsters are annoying.

  But none of that mattered when I got off the L train on Bedford Avenue. The sun was setting and the sky was a sweet blue, etched with lines of white from airplane exhaust, and I was feeling mellow, as deeply mellow as I had since my mom left town. I shielded my eyes and looked
around, trying to figure out which direction was south and how I was going to find the Bell Café, where I was supposed to meet Ruth.

  “Hey!”

  And there she was. She grabbed my hand and we did this kind of awkward kiss thing, pretty much where we rubbed cheeks, but not entirely. It was good, really good.

  “Wow, now I’m not lost,” I said. “And I ran into you in the street again. That’s incredible that we keep doing that.”

  “Yeah, it kind of is,” Ruth said. Her voice still had that odd low and nasal quality, which was such a relief to me because without it she was much too perfect and it would’ve been too much to deal with her.

  “It’s like, as opposed to other people, I don’t have to worry about losing you, cause we’ll just run into each other again.”

  We walked along Bedford, weaving in and out of the throngs of guys and girls who looked like they were headed for band practice or to their jewelry studios or to jobs working for fashion photographers. They sort of made me feel like the new Y-3 neck warmer I’d picked up at Barneys Co-Op wasn’t as cool as I’d thought.

  “This scene is intense,” I said.

  And Ruth nodded. She grabbed my hand. She was wearing tall pointy boots and a miniskirt and a shredded leather jacket with a bright orange shirt underneath that had a high collar. Her honey-colored hair was down and flowing.

  “Do you live here?” I asked.

  “No—I live in this old loft in Nolita with my parents, on Mulberry Street across from Saint Valentine’s. But I’m here all the time. I worked at the Bell Café last summer, but I still like to hang out there even when I’m not working.”

  “That’s cool,” I said.

  We got to the Bell Café and went to the back garden, even though it was cold back there. They had a bench with a stone table in front of it and she nestled close to me. The sun was low, but it found its way to us through the scraggly trees.

  “What about you—where do you live?”

  “I live with my mom, but she’s away right now. So I’m staying with my friends.”

  “I met them the other night.”

  “Well, you met two. There are two more.”

  “Five of you.”

  “Except one of us is Patch and he’s never really around.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s lost.”

  She smiled. And then we were kissing on the bench. And I was happily alone with her. Or we were alone together. Or it didn’t matter. I’d met a girl at a party who I’d already had electricity with on the street so it felt like fate, and we’d clicked against all odds of that happening, and now we were kissing and I wanted to never be with anybody else again but her.

  “I don’t know what it is,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  We stayed there until it was pretty dark, huddled together in the back of that café. Music came from inside, Velvet Underground, and it was like the whole feel of being with her, warm and trusting and extremely cool. She made me feel good, so good I had completely forgotten about all the trouble with my dad, and all the trouble I sensed was somehow brewing with my guys. After a while though, she said she had to get home to hang out with her parents before going out with her friends. And I had to get back to Arno’s.

  “When can I see you again?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. And she was suddenly uncertain. Now that it was dark it was kind of cold, so we stepped inside the Bell, where they were transitioning from daytime coffee spot to nighttime bar. I tried to keep looking at her eyes, but she was looking around.

  “What?”

  “Let’s not schedule anything. Let’s just talk later, okay?” Her voice was so imperfect, and I just can’t say enough about it—what a relief that single imperfection was. I took up her honey-colored hair, touched her neck, and kissed her once, slowly.

  “Okay,” I said.

  dinner with the wildenburgers

  Patch’s parents, Frederick and Fiona Flood, were at Arno’s for dinner, along with a completely nondescript pair of Arno’s dad’s business friends. Arno sat and drank wine with them in the living room. Everyone was on two couches, facing each other, except for Arno’s dad, who remained standing. Arno knew his father liked it when people had to look up at him.

  It was Tuesday night and Arno was enjoying himself, getting a little buzzed on the wine and vaguely following the gossip his parents so enjoyed exchanging. He didn’t tell a lot of people about it, but he kind of got a kick out of hanging out with his parents. This was never true when they were alone, because then their relationship showed too much wear, but with other people, they put on a good show. Right then they were talking about their escapades in Florida.

  “And when the maid caught us in the pool, in our birthday suits no less, she sang us a song! Isn’t that fun?” Alec asked.

  “Lord, Alec. She was praying,” his wife shook her head and finished her wine. The front doorbell rang. “Someone go get it,” she murmured, half to herself. Arno stared at his mom. She was unbelievably pale in a black sheath dress that accented her thin wrists. Her black hair swayed around her head like a mini motorcycle helmet. If he hadn’t seen her naked by the pool with his very own eyes just a few weeks ago, when he’d been obsessed with Jonathan’s cousin Kelli, he’d never have believed she was capable of that sort of thing.

  Jonathan passed by the huge living room. Arno saw him stumble. He must not have realized there was a big dinner party happening, and he just kept going.

  “Hey,” Arno said. Jonathan peeked into the room and motioned that he couldn’t deal with the scene just then, but that he’d be back in a second.

  “Alec, would you recommend we buy another Pardo sculpture for our land in Connecticut, something for our north lawn?” Frederick Flood asked.

  Arno watched his father stiffen. And he was pretty stiff already in his blue corduroy suit, a silky pink shirt, and black velvet loafers with fox heads embroidered on them. His mom, who had been looking pretty relaxed, begin to fidget with her big sparkly diamond wedding band. In a faraway room, a phone rang.

  “I think Ricardo Pardo’s work may be…no longer so fashionable,” Alec Wildenburger said, looking at his wife and frowning. “In fact, I’d sell my Pardos, if I were you.”

  “That’s disgusting of you to say,” Allie snapped at him.

  “Come now, Allie,” Frederick Flood said. He stood up and put a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugged off. “If Alec Wildenburger says Ricardo Pardo is done, believe me, he is done.” He laughed.

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” Allie muttered, and left the room.

  Arno finished his glass of wine just as Jonathan walked back into the room. His face was roughed up from having been quickly washed and he seemed, not high exactly, but glistening. Arno smiled. It looked like Jonathan was in love.

  “What’s up, man?” Arno said. The group glanced over at the two teenagers.

  “Everyone,” Alec Wildenburger announced, “you know my son’s friend Jonathan.”

  Jonathan blanched slightly when Alec spoke, and gave only an awkward wave. Weird, weird, Arno thought. Of course everyone is flipped out by everybody else’s parents, but Jonathan, up to then, had always gotten along really well with the Wildenburgers. He had a gift for pretending that he was a little adult and Allie and Alec Wildenburger were the kind of parents who enjoyed that. But now … wasn’t Alec going to see Jonathan’s father in London in like a week? Hadn’t someone mentioned that to him? And didn’t it have something to do with that PISS woman that was taking him and Jonathan on the sailing trip? Arno had never been a stickler for details, but at the moment he wished he’d been paying more attention over the last few days.

  “Hullo,” Jonathan whispered. Frederick Flood nodded once curtly and looked away. The other nondescript couple were quiet. Then one said:

  “Jonathan…haven’t we heard something about your father?”

  “Something not so savory,” whispered the other.

&nb
sp; “That’s the one,” Fiona Flood said, and there was an edge to her voice. She sounded extremely pointed and gossipy.

  The bankers looked away. Arno watched. Even his own dad seemed to glare slightly at Jonathan before helping himself to more Camembert and crackers. The huge living room was quiet except for the weird harp music that was playing in the background. A log crackled in the fireplace and a spark flew out, past the grate, and onto the Aubusson rug. Jonathan jumped over and stamped it out. Arno watched in utter confusion as no one thanked him.

  “What are you two doing for dinner?” Allie asked. She’d come back into the room with a full glass of wine.

  “I guess we’re not eating with you all,” Arno said, suddenly totally annoyed at his parents and everybody else for being such assholes. So what if Jonathan was staying over for a few days because his mom was a loon and had split town while she was having their apartment painted? And whatever about his dad—what were they even talking about? Fuck them. He’d been totally mellow only five minutes ago, enjoying the relative warmth and safety of his own living room, and now his mom and dad had messed it up all over again. He really wondered what he was going to do with the two of them.

  “We’re going to smoke up some heroin in my room and watch sadomasochistic porn,” Arno said. “You know, chase the dragon and then wag its tail?”

  “Very funny, darling,” Allie said. “Now get along, you two. On to your mischief.”

  No one had even offered Jonathan a glass of wine. Arno scratched his head. He didn’t get it.

  “Okay,” Arno shrugged. “See you.”

  Arno walked out of the room without looking back at his parents or their guests, and Jonathan followed.

  They went down to Arno’s wing, padding quietly down the hall.

  “Your dad had on velvet shoes with foxes on them.”

  “I know. My dad is so gay.”

  “You know—” Jonathan pulled up short and stared at Arno. Arno stared back.

  “What?” Arno asked.

  “He really is,” Jonathan said.

  Arno said nothing. They reached his room and he grabbed some fifty-dollar bills from a silver bowl on his desk.